Posts tagged “Marriage”

Posted on October 24th, 2016

October 21, 2016 Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Apostles, Melrose Park, IL Dear Saints loved by God, bride of the mystical bridegroom, our Lord JESUS Christ, It was not good for Jonathan to be alone. So the Lord prepared for Jonathan a helper suitable for him. To you, Jonathan, God gives Cari as bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh. Many gifts we receive and enjoy for ourselves. But in the gift of marriage comes the call to donate yourself, open up to and sacrifice yourself for the needs of your nearest neighbor. We heard how Adam’s side was opened up, in a sleep like unto death. His rib became the constitutive element of the woman, signifying that the husband guards and…

Posted on June 18th, 2016

Text: Hosea 2:18-23 “I will betroth you to Me,” “I will betroth you to Me,” “I will betroth you to Me.” Three times the Lord says this through the prophet Hosea. It’s reckless and pollyannic, for the bride in Hosea is undeserving. And that is precisely the point: God acts in love and mercy upon the undeserving. Pope Francis recently commented on marriage within the Roman Catholic church, saying, “The great majority of our sacramental marriages are null.” I.e., most Roman Catholic marriages are not real marriages because the couples entering into them do not have a proper understanding of permanence and commitment. But who does? Matthew Schmitz, the literary editor of the journal First Things, reacted with concern, observing it seemed the Pope was saying…

Posted on June 3rd, 2015

Dr. Luther on child-rearing: Married people should know that there is no greater and more useful work than they might do for God, Christendom, the rest of the world, themselves and their children than to bring up their children correctly. For this is the most direct path to Heaven…. But, likewise, there is no easier way to earn Hell than through your own children. There is no more damaging work that could be done by parents than to neglect their children, to let them curse, swear, learn shameful words and songs and to let them live according to their own will…. There is no greater scandal in Christendom than the neglect of children…. A false love of nature blinds parents, so that they give…

Posted on April 29th, 2015

Here’s an important section of a book everyone should read, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense So it is a summary, but hardly an exaggeration, to say that civilization depends on strong marriages. Maggie Gallagher captures this insight with the slogan that “sex makes babies, society needs babies, and children need mothers and fathers.” She develops the idea: “The critical public or ‘civil’ task of marriage is to regulate sexual relationships between men and women in order to reduce the likelihood that children (and their mothers, and society) will face the burdens of fatherlessness, and increase the likelihood that there will be a next generation that will be raised by their mothers and fathers in one family, where both parents are committed to…

Posted on December 21st, 2014

David, last night your brother Dan told us about the time you had a week to grow out your hair while playing Jesus in a sixth-grade pageant. With this wedding, you get to resume that role. In your marriage, you play Jesus, you are called to be Jesus to your wife. This is more a manly thing even than winning second prize in a hairy chest competition. I have a profound respect for people like you who serve in our armed forces to protect our country. The skill and courage to fight requires strength. Now as a husband, you will need a different kind of strength. A twentieth century figure I admire is the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His older brothers had all fought…

Posted on September 30th, 2014

1 Corinthians 13:5 September 27, 2014 Social media is not evil. It simply magnifies the evil that is in the human heart. Status updates rarely reflect one’s real status. We appear always to be doing fun things, important things, exciting things. We are witty, funny, snarky – or bringing a wise, contrarian take on everyone else’s idiocy. We post pictures of ourselves looking our best, and filter our shots to make our lives seem exceptional. And then we are outraged. Outraged about politicians, outraged about the police, outraged about Israel, outraged about the Palestinians, outraged about religion, the other guy’s religion or lack thereof. And the outrage keeps us from actually learning anything from each other. Then, when things get really bad?…

Posted on September 7th, 2014

Trinity 12 September 7, 2014 Baptism of Landon Robert Andrews Mark 7:31-37 When God made man, He did not make him defective. His ears were opened to the music of creation. His tongue, discovering nourishment and sweetness planted all around him, responded by singing the praise of his Maker, who had done all things well. Sucking in a gulp of air, the man was glad. He did not know how to sigh except in contentment. All this changed when death entered the world. The man’s sigh became his bitter companion. Breath burst forth from his rancid mouth in anger, annoyance, sorrow, until the day he sighed his last and returned to the earth. Gone were the days when a man said of God, “He…

Posted on May 23rd, 2014

Dear Wayne and Deborah, I am so glad that our kind Lord has brought you to this day. God is the giver of all good gifts, and marriage is His gift. Marriage can also be a curse, like any gift that is misused. But marriage especially is in the devil’s crosshairs, because marriage is more than just a good gift of creation. Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church, as we heard St. Paul say. God has joined you together to share in a unique and special way the love that flows between Jesus and His bride, the Church. So the devil hates your marriage and wants to destroy it. How will you protect your marriage from withering under that attack? In…

Posted on February 26th, 2014

The revisionist view of marriage is irrational, amounting to putting regulations on emotional bonds: Imagine a world in which the law set the terms of your ordinary friendships: You and a coworker could not strike up a friendship across cubicles without first getting the state’s approval, which it could deny you for being too young or otherwise unqualified. Having formed a friendship, you could not end it without the state’s permission. You could even be forced to pay for projects once pursued with estranged friends—until your death, and under threat of imprisonment. This would be madness, and we all see why: ordinary friendships simply do not affect the common good in structured ways that could justify legal regulation. Why, then, do we—and every culture…

Posted on February 19th, 2014

The Libertarian argument that the state should be uninvolved in the institution of marriage is attractive but unworkable. It makes the state grow more powerful, not less: Redefining civil marriage will further erode marital norms, thrusting the state even more deeply into leading roles for which it is poorly suited: parent and discipliner to the orphaned, provider to the neglected, and arbiter of disputes over custody, paternity, and visitations. As the family weakens, our welfare and correctional bureaucracies grow. Girgis, Sherif; Anderson, Ryan T; George, Robert P. What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense (p. 9). Encounter Books. Christians must present a coherent, natural-law argument in defense of traditional marriage.